


A Visit

by Aithilin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Depictions of past violence, Gen, childhood fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-10-30 07:14:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17824283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: The creature of Angelgard gets an annual visit.





	1. Chapter 1

“Does it hurt?”

There was a festival at Galdin Quay. Music and noise carried across the open, salty waters as the little village-turned-bustling-resort flared to life beneath the sun. The lights would fill the sky and fireworks would dash themselves against the stars, all for the merriment of the people playing on the stretch of warm beach and beneath the golden sun. The little resort transformed with the summer warmth to a market and strip of games, to races and rides across the water with chocobos leaping across platforms. 

But the island was still dark and empty. 

Angelgard was a place of ritual and ceremony. It was a standing tradition to bar it off, to exile those who dared to touch its sacred ground. The Grave of the Oracle still stood there, in the shard of curling, coiling clear crystalline magic; the ancient divine swords— the plumage of the Draconian— still barred it off from all who would attempt to reach it. 

Still cursed those who wished to trespass the hallowed prison. 

“My dear boy,” the voice in the dark spoke, the ichor dripping against the stone flooring; “I wouldn’t know any feeling if it didn’t hurt.”

The Grave still held healing magic— older and more powerful than any other magics in the kingdom. The island still held its silence against the ages, but fishermen and families from Galdin Quay, from Altissia beyond, from the little settlements that dotted the edge of the Lucian coasts, still travelled to the isolated island in search of healing. Regis had heard the rumours and the gossip— Angelgard absorbed the infection of the Scourge— and broke the ancient royal decrees to bring his own son to the silent, sentinel island. 

The decree had been broken centuries ago. Another desperate king with another dying child. A desperate Queen with a dying brother. A dying husband, a dying wife. An ancient order dashed by the love of family that burned through the Lucis Caelum line, until a guard was set. Until a guard ordered by Kings before Kings was stationed there. 

They were never Lucians. 

“Are you lonely?”

“I have my dashing young guard, dear boy.”

The guards sent to the island, generation after generation were never those most loyal to the Throne. They were fierce, and strong, and paid well to withstand the voices in the dark. 

Regis was the one to break tradition. 

Kings looked the other way when pilgrims ventured to Angelgard to view the swords and the grave. They stole across the waters in secret and silence, and tested the divine orders to turn away. 

Regis tested the gods at every opportunity. 

He had brought his son to be healed at the Grave of the Oracle, to watch and pray as the infection seeped from his son through to the dead grounds below. He stayed in vigil until his child woke, until the guards with him watched the darkness of the tomb like it was alive. Until he heard the voice too; “bring me the boy.”

Now they travelled there each year, to reflect and learn as the official story was. 

Noctis stepped around the dark pools and deeper into the dark. 

“Don’t be scared.”

The voice twisted through the pitch and echoed across the stone. It dripped with the ichor seeping into the cracks in the stone and rattled with the chains suspended from the ancient ceiling. Noctis had heard it before. 

“I’m not scared.”

The young prince had wandered away from his father’s side, the watchful guard settled within reach if needed. But these little visits were the new tradition— the annual dashing of the Founder King’s decree in a streak of rebellion that had never really left the ruling lines.

This year, Prince Noctis had brought a toy to show to the creature in the tomb. This year, he brought a piece of the magic he was learning— little flames conjured to life in his palm, to replace the weak candles that were permitted before. 

“How old are you now?”

The chains rattled at the creature coughed. And Noctis stepped forward. 

“Ten.”

“Still young.”

“I’m getting older!”

“Aren’t we all, dear boy? Come closer.”

Noctis knew what he would see in the dark. He knew those dark eyes and the dripping black. He knew the rusted chains and the seeping darkness that steeped the tomb walls. He knew the pale figure strung between the arched stone and the feeling of death that lingered after centuries. 

“Does that hurt?”

A chain moved and a wound tore. 

“You’ve asked that already, little one.”

“Can I fix it?”

“No.”

“I want to fix it.” Noctis circled the creature, his toy set on the dry stone within sight. He was careful to hop over the puddles of darkness and avoided the seeping black ichor he had been told was Scourge. “People shouldn’t be hurt like this.”

“How kind.”

They had talked before. Noctis had listened to stories of fields of flowers and ancient forests. He had listened to the voice rattle through the dark— softened and sweet and tired, and grated and pained and cruel. He had seen blue eyes turn black and yellow, and blood turn to Scourge. 

“Is there a cure?”

“Not yet.”

“But I was cured.”

“No,” the creature said; “you were healed. There is a difference, dear boy. You can feel it.”

“I’m not sick.”

There was a tug on a chain, and a small hand pressed to a wound. The inky, dripping, seeping Scourge that slipped from split and broken flesh spread to the small hand. And the creature jerked away; “Don’t tempt fate, little one.”

It was hissed through clenched teeth, through a shattered voice. And the wound tore with the smallest movement. But Noctis persisted, and the Scourge burned away with the fire called to his hand. 

“I don’t believe in fate.”

“Don’t tempt the gods then.”


	2. Fresh Air

“I thought I told you not to tempt the gods, dear boy.”

The wounds healed. Flesh sealed together before the ichor that dripped from him could corrupt the gloved hands that tugged and pulled at pried the ancient chains from him. He had watched, bleary eyed against the artificial lights that the Lucians had brought into his tiny prison. He had watched and waited, and held his tongue as the chains and hooks one by one, were cut away. Pulled away. And left him to drop. 

A young hand pressed a vial into his own healing hand— the darkness dripping away as he regained himself. 

There was no festival this time. 

The waters around Angelgard were silent and calm, though the men who moved around the island felt of fear and nervousness. They paced and held their weapons; some stood a silent guard, while others kept to tight patrols. 

“Maybe I don’t believe in the gods.”

The vial the young prince— out of his childhood now, Ardyn would think— gave to him shattered with barely a touch. Curative magics, and medicinal smells cloaked them both, even as the Grave of the Oracle pulsed in the moonlight. Ardyn felt the vitality in the magics, the strength of it flooding his own system, and he only had eyes for the twisted mockery of a memorial surrounded by the Draconian’s signs. 

He stumbled as he tried to reach it. 

And nearly shoved the prince who offered a stable hand away. 

“Don’t say such things,” he managed, accepting the young man’s arm. “You’ve grown.”

“You said that last year.”

“You seem to grow every year, my boy.” 

The guards no longer stared at the darkness of the tomb as they had in the years before. They longer recoiled at the soft rumble of his voice, barely cutting through the night above a whisper as he regained himself in the presence of the prince they had followed. They stood, anxious and at attention, as the prince walked with him. As the prince refused to lead, refused to drag or herd; as he helped the prisoner of Angelgard to the pulse and beat of holy magic that remained on the island. 

Ardyn reached for the light of the healing grave as if it called to him. He knelt, with difficulty, dragging the kind boy with him to the dead ground where the Draconian swords caged off the last remnant of life on the island. 

“Perhaps you should reconsider, dear prince.”

“No,” the prince knelt with him, “I don’t think I will.”

“Stubborn boy.”

Beyond the glow of the grave, the monument to the Oracle taken what Ardyn suspected must be years, centuries, or longer ago, Ardyn saw the stars. And the water. The cold night air carried over from the distant islands, and the closer lands of Galdin Quay promised warmth when the sun rose. Luminescent fish broke the mirror illusion of the calm waters, and Ardyn could almost hear the promise of freedom on the wind. 

“You look much like my brother, you know.”

“Do I?”

“A sweeter temperament, I suppose.” Ardyn let himself breathe deep without pain for the first time in nearly as long as he could remember. The days before the darkness a distant dream that felt too real, and too broken. The familiar praises and gratitude slipped from his lips before he caught them— the old habits in the face of what he could see was still a divine blessing. 

Noctis waited. 

And offered his hand when Ardyn made to rise. 

“And where am I to be kept now, my boy?”

“Home, in Lucis,” Noctis offered a smile— the same, shy little smile Ardyn knew from the yearly visits. The same sweet little smile that the boy he had watched heal and grow from year to year, asking if he hurt or was lonely or was scared, had offered when faced what must have been a monster. “We might have a cure.”

“A cure?”


End file.
